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⁶⁵ You have dealt well with your servant,
    O Lord, according to your word.
⁶⁶ Teach me good judgment and knowledge,
    for I believe in your commandments.
⁶⁷ Before I was afflicted I went astray,
    but now I keep your word.
⁶⁸ You are good and do good;
    teach me your statutes.
⁶⁹ The insolent smear me with lies,
    but with my whole heart I keep your precepts;
⁷⁰ their heart is unfeeling like fat,
    but I delight in your law.
⁷¹ It is good for me that I was afflicted,
    that I might learn your statutes.
⁷² The law of your mouth is better to me
    than thousands of gold and silver pieces

The Bible is like every other book. It consists of words on a page. We need to read those words, and then make sense of them in their context. The process of learning what is in God’s word is not dissimilar to understanding and processing everything else we read. 

The Bible is nothing like any other book. It is living and active. As we read we hear the words of the living God - we are not just reading words he spoke years ago. We do not remain unchanged when we read it. We are either softened and obedient to the Lord, or hardened and opposed to him.

Because this is true, it is good to know that the Lord is involved with us as we come to his word. He is committed to enabling his people to hear and obey his word. He is working within us as we listen to him. He is at work in the circumstances of our life to help us stay close to him.

This is very encouraging. However as we read this section we see that the way he does this may not be the way we might want him to. 

So far in this Psalm there have been two different themes. There has been the theme of the word of God itself. The fact that hearing and obeying it is the way of blessing. The fact that the Lord always keeps his word and so we can rely on it. 

There has also been the theme of opposition. We, like the Psalmist, read this word amongst people who hate the Lord, hate his word, and hate those who live by the word of God.

These two themes come together in this section. That opposition is not out of the Lord’s control. In fact, he uses that opposition to enable us to listen to the word of God better. 

The Psalmist looks at his life and recognises that the Lord has “dealt well” with him (vs 65). But this doesn’t mean his life was always easy. He has gone through “affliction” (vs 67) and has been “smeared with lies” (vs 69). But these things have not made him bitter because he knows that it is because he has been through those experiences that he now “keeps God’s word” and “keeps God’s precepts”. He says it explicitly in verse 71 “It is good for me that I was afflicted”. Can you imagine saying that about some hardship you have been through? But it made him really “learn” what the Lord was saying. 

When things are going well it is easy to not take the Bible seriously. The promises don’t jump out at us because we are happy with our life. But when life is tough, it’s then that the hope of resurrection and the coming judgement when Jesus will right all wrongs becomes such a source of hope. When we are faced with the reality of our own sinfulness, then the cross and the promise of forgiveness becomes so much more precious. 

The Lord is never absent or silent during hard times. He is probably at work to keep us close to him and his word. He is not a Lord who promises ease and prosperity this side of heaven. Looking at these verses we should not want that. Because knowing him in his word should be the most precious thing to us (vs 72). And sometimes it takes going through the “valley of the shadow of death” to know he is with us and he is enabling us to really learn what he is saying to us